Fallen
by AprilLittle
Summary: Thresh's final hours in the arena.


Unable to sleep, he laid stretched out on his back, quietly counting the twinkling stars above. On a clear night like this, three thousand of them should be visible to the unaided eye. It was cold, but the tawny stocks of the genetically modified wheat buffered him from the worst of the chill. At dawn, the table for the special feast would be set, and he might have to kill to attain what he needed. Disposing of the boy from District Seven during the bloodbath at the cornucopia was an unfortunate necessity; he had needed to attain enough supplies to outlast twenty-three other tributes.

The field of wheat was the perfect sanctuary, like a small piece of District Eleven placed in the arena just for him. His district partner, Rue, ran straight for the woods when the gong sounded. That was good. She worked in the orchards at home and the trees would provide her with security due to her uncanny ability to weave through their branches at extreme heights and with great grace. A few nights ago, he was saddened to see her smiling face lit up in the sky as the eighteenth death. He wondered how it had happened, and hoped that it had not been prolonged. When he returned home, he would make sure the little girl's family was taken care of.

The stars slowly began to disappear as dawn approached. He crept to the edge of the field to scout for other tributes as they arrived at the feast. Nothing yet. Soon he would have to consider how he was going to safely acquire the gift left for him. He had no weapon. But he was strong and fast; he would have to improvise when the moment came.

The feast table appeared precisely at dawn with four different sized and colored backpacks. The sneaky red-headed girl from District Five proved to have the best plan; she leapt out of her hiding place within the golden cornucopia, snatched the green pack emblazoned with a number five, and bolted to the safety of the woods. The next tribute to make their way toward the table was the girl from District Twelve, the Girl on Fire. He didn't see any sign of her district partner, but that certainly didn't mean he wasn't hidden somewhere nearby as back-up. As she grabbed the small orange bag and turned to leave, the feisty girl from District Two burst onto the scene and threw a knife at Twelve's face, then pinned her to the ground and started gesticulating with another sharp blade. Stupid girl. He used their preoccupation with one another to sneak up and retrieve his large, black backpack. As he was backing away, he heard Two brag of Rue's death.

"Did you kill that little girl?" he asked, enraged.

The arrogant, diminutive girl's eyes went wide as he picked a large stone off the ground and approached her.

"No! It wasn't me, it was-"

He lifted the rock high and arced it down into her temple, crushing her skull. She collapsed to the ground, convulsing.

He turned to the other girl, "You allied with Rue?"

"Yes, we blew up the Careers' food supply. I was there when she was killed...I sang and placed flowers around her body," the girl from District Twelve replied nervously.

"Go. Just this once. For her," he said as he picked his backpack up off the ground and threw District Two's over his shoulder as he passed the feast table.

After he regained the relative safety of the wheat field, he opened his bag to find exactly what he needed - a special suit of armor to protect him from the weapons of the others, and a perfectly balanced sword to make him the winner of the 74th Hunger Games. Out of curiosity, he temporarily set aside his own gifts and opened District Two's bag; he was rewarded with bread and cheese. Ah, yes, Rue and the Girl on Fire had destroyed their food; he smiled at the ingenuity of their plan.

Momentarily distracted by his thoughts, he was not ready to defend himself when Cato's sword spliced through the nearby wall of wheat. He lunged for the pack containing his armor and weapon, but it had tumbled out of reach. He raised his forearm to deflect Cato's sword from damaging anything vital; at first he felt nothing, but then there was a searing pain as the bone was smashed and the skin was split into a gaping wound. Blood poured to the ground, turning the dirt and grain an angry red. He attempted to grab Cato's leg and bring him to the ground, but Cato kicked him down, and his face smashed into the saturated earth.

There was a pinching sensation between his shoulder blades.

Then numbness.

He gasped for air, but his lungs had given out.

A stream of blood trickled past his lips and fell to the ground below, melding with the crimson pool the sword through his chest had created. Unable to move, he laid quietly on his stomach and watched the golden grains that surrounded him as they swayed softly in the breeze. He closed his eyes. The boom of the cannon heralded his failure.


End file.
